WI Women vs ENG Women, 2nd T20I at Brighton, ENG-W vs WI-W, May 23 2025 - Ball by Ball Commentary

This concludes the action from today's match. Thank you for tuning in. See you all on May 26th for the third and final T20I match of the series. Until then, this is Rashad Mahbub signing off on behalf of Sudeep Poojar and the ESPNcricinfo team. Ciao!

Nat Sciver-Brunt: "(Winning the series) Happy days! Yeah. I mean, the bowlers just set up the game beautifully today. Made great use of the Power play. And when you've got someone who's two games into their career begging me to bowl four over straight through, pretty much, it's a dream, actually. I obviously wanted to try something a little bit different with the opening pair today. But yeah, Em (Arlott) taking a wicket in the first over, and then just getting on a roll. It seemed a shame to take her off. (Batting form) Cricket's a funny game, isn't it? My innings lasted two balls the other night, and then I got a first-ball boundary. Yeah, cricket. Cricket is funny like that, isn't it? (Fielding) That's something we set a pretty high standard in the first game, but I'm pretty sure we probably top that here tonight. That's something that drives the energy and the team massively. And yeah, it's a great energy builder for us. We'll head off to Chelmsford and prepare in the way that we do."

Hayley Matthews: "It's obviously a bit disappointing. We knew coming down here that it was going to be a tough tour, obviously missing some of our season campaigners like Deandra Dottin and Chinnelle Henry. It's obviously still a lot to ask from the girls who are quite inexperienced. So yeah, we'd obviously like to compete a bit better, but we'll have to see how that goes in the next one. I think just keep encouraging them (young players). You know, I think it definitely has nothing to do with the effort that they're putting in. We're asking girls who've probably played 30 to 40 domestic games ever in their life, if so much, to come and perform at the international stage. And it's always going to be hard for them and hard to ask coaches as well, to come to this level and turn girls into magic when we don't have a proper system to come through a lot anytime. So I think we just have to keep encouraging them as much as possible, and, yeah, keep making sure that they're having fun while they're playing as well. Well, this is always going to be good for them to be out here playing. It's obviously a steep learning curve. But at the same time, you know, the mistakes that they're making these mistakes so we make as a team, we're all going to learn from them together."

Player of the Match Em Arlott: "(Must be an easy game) No, absolutely not. Obviously, it's a kind of dream start to my career, with England, but it's nice to get back to winning ways with the girls. (Bowling four overs in the Powerplay) It's a very different role from the first game. But I guess in T20, you've just got to be flexible. One game looks very different from the next. But we just felt like, seem up front, we just wanted to test it out and see how it went. And obviously it went well. I feel like with T20, it's the team that adapts to what you've got on the day the quickest and then applies that to the game. The wicket was a little bit stoppy. It looked pretty hard to bat up top. So we just, personally, I felt like, if I kept stumps at play and bowled my natural hard length, if I could just keep repeating that, it would make it pretty hard for them to score. I thought we were great as a (fielding) unit today. I think everybody really stood up and did a job. But sometimes you have a couple of people that do really, really well, but I felt like everybody was just on it today. And yeah, full credits. The girls were great. (Mood of the camp) Obviously great! It's great. Great group of girls, they've been great to me to welcome me in, and almost let me settle in as easily as I felt like I have, it's just credit to the girls really."

8:58 pm Zaida James got the Windies off to a great start by dismissing Danni Wyatt-Hodge for a golden duck in the very first ball of the innings. However, the West Indies' low total was inadequate for their bowlers to defend. Nat Sciver-Brunt, England's captain, launched a quick counter-attack, slamming three consecutive boundaries off Fraser in the fourth over. The West Indies had a difficult time getting back into the match after that. Nat Sciver-Brunt went on to score her 17th WT20I fifty, finishing unbeaten on 55 runs from only 30 balls. Sophia Dunkley struck a well-struck knock in the middle, scoring 24 runs from 25 deliveries. With today's victory, England clinched the series 2-0, with one match remaining. Post Match presentation coming up shortly.

England Women won by 9 wickets

Another bowling change, Alleyne joins the attack

Duncan Ward : "Absolutely joyful to watch NSB bat like this."

Floodlights are on, lovely breeze over the ground. 19 runs required from 78 balls. Here's Fletcher.

Over the wicket

End of the Powerplay, Mathews to continue